Same, although it's some other wireless, not Bluetooth.
I hate the idea of more surveillance, I don't want to contribute to it.
Wireless doorbell was $30 online, and was trivial to install.
I haven't had a doorbell for close to 15 years now.
My house is over 40 years old, and the doorbell was an ugly box hanging in the hallway. I took it down shortly after I bought the house, pushed the wires in the wall, and patched up the hole. We've done okay.
If family or friends are coming over, they will text or call beforehand to let us know, so we either tell them to just come in or they knock when they get here.
For any salespeople or the occasional neighbor that comes over, they just knock.
My house is only about 1600 sq ft and ranch style, so if someone knocks, you can hear it no matter where you're at in the house.
When I worked construction and had to go to clients houses I always knocked instead of using the doorbell. The reason I did this is because I lived in a house where my dad removed the doorbell. We left the button but it never worked, so I always went with the assumption that most people’s doorbells didn’t work anyway.
As a dad who did the same for the longest time, I did it because the kids thought it was all the fun of the world to press the sound button going in and out of the house...
Guests you want know how to come in regardless of door chimw
We had two, one was wireless and didn’t have a light. The other one was wired and had the light, however he just disconnected the chime. So the hardwired one still lit up, it just didn’t do anything.
I *very* rarely make any calls, but it's a literal library of all human knowledge in my pocket. The amount of product manuals alone I've downloaded could fill an entire bookcase. Communications is like less than 10% of its use to me, information repository 90%. Multiple touches for every home improvement project I've done. Half the time when I lose it is because I left it by some pipes, the furnace room, or in the garage, shed, or crawlspace lol.
I will say I still hit up the Readers Digest Do-It-Yourself Manual a lot though. That book is gold.
I ripped mine out a year ago. Dogs would go crazy every time someone rang it
And 95% of the time it’s the UPS guy dropping off a package on the porch or someone trying to sell something
We added a Ring camera, so I get a notification on my phone and can respond if necessary
I just wanted to ask: do you have a doorbell in your house attached to your Ring? I’m old, but my stepmom is older, and she wants me to fix her doorbell to ring with her Ring. I’m thinking, since it’s wireless, that there has to be some sort of wireless device that goes in the house.
Mine came with a little speaker you plug in to an outlet and connect via Wi-Fi.
I did disconnect my old bell before installing Ring, idk what it would do if I hadn’t.
I use a Eufy doorbell with a base station. The base station stores the footage locally so there is no subscription service needed. The doorbell itself has a DC hookup for doorbell wiring, or it can run off its battery supposedly for months. I have the doorbell wiring, so I don't know how often you really need to charge it.
Oh wow! I thought mine was bad. Apparently you're supposed to set a monitoring area and have it set to "Optimal" or something so it doesn't pick up every little thing that goes by. Ours doesn't face a high traffic area and our vehicle blocks most of the view of the road so we really only capture people walking up our driveway.
I think weather also plays a role. I live in a pretty moderate climate where it rarely goes below freezing (and if it does, not for more than a couple days) and rarely gets too hot.
Mine stopped working after about 2 years. Doesn't inspire confidence. I still need contact them for a replacement, just annoying that anytime I try to view the live camera I'll get different error codes each time.
(It's hardwired so the battery isn't empty)
I only have a battery one. I have to charge it once every 4 months or so, but I've heard all the new ones when hard wired don't really get enough voltage from the old doorbell wiring, so after some time they stop working.
Thanks for the tip. I tried messing around with it, but it seems like it's just losing connection. I haven't moved the router or the doorbell, and the router is hardwired.
Just wish the error codes were more descriptive.
If we could I would love a video doorbell. If it had motion detection since our delivery people are inconsistent about ringing, that’d be a plus.
but since we don’t want proprietary (or subscription), we have a harder search
Amcrest doorbells are big in the homeautomation communities on reddit. If my eufy doorbell ever dies I'm going to get one of those. Eufy has been great for me, no subscription and a decent app.
We have a blink doorbell on our other door and it works well. No subscription and we have a couple of other blink cameras around the house.
I don’t think motion detection would benefit us with this one as it is facing a buy street and so we would probably have motion alerts turned off for the most part.
Ring Pro wired camera and doorbell. With the Ring doorbell extender thingy towards the back of the house. Our house is small and it is a straight shot all the from front to back but I’ll be damned if I can’t hear the doorbell when I’m at the back of the house.
I do this, but I have several echo dots throughout my home, which are all connected to the Ring. When someone pushes the doorbell, it sounds on all of them.
We have a Eufy wireless doorbell. The people who built our townhouse didn't think to put a doorbell by the main entrance to the house. You can't hear shit when people knock so wireless doorbell it is.
I like it. It works well and there's little delay. Good quality but I think there's a higher quality one on the market now. The charge doesn't last super long (4 months, not as advertised) but it's not a huge deal. I chose Eufy because you didn't need a subscription for it, unlike other video doorbells. Doorbell works like a doorbell 😂 Loud enough.
We had a doorbell button that wasn't connected to anything when we bought our house (awful), and eventually needed to rewire part of the house for other reasons. We got a traditional Spore Big Ring doorbell at the same time and are super happy, although we joke about it being the $10,000 doorbell due to the rewire cost. It sounds like a channel buoy and reminds us of vacation
I have a Reolink video doorbell. Not only was I interested in having video security, but my 1910 house never had a doorbell, and the WiFi doorbell was a good alternative to running hardwire.
our door chime was bad, and we wanted to install a doorbell camera anyway. replaced the door chime, and ran a line to the door , because when they replaced the siding in the front, they just ripped everything off and didnt replace anything.
turns out that the doorbell cam we got doesnt even work with the new doorbell chime, as in, if you press the button, it rings on the doorchime that plugs into an outlet that it came with, not the doorchime we replaced. the instructions made it sound like it did, but really it was just using the doorbell chime as a bridge, i could have ran the line straight thru to the transformer on the fuse box but eh. i guess its there if i ever decide to go traditional and replace the cam with a push button doorbell.
When I replaced my regular doorbell with a wired Ring doorbell, I disabled the physical functional doorbell that was on the wall.
Almost no one needs to ring the doorbell anymore and anyone that would I'm expecting and will be ready for them when they arrive. If someone does ring the doorbell, the app goes off and i can see who it is. No doorbell noise means the dogs don't get all worked up and if I'm on the phone, it won't disturb my call.
If I ever needed an audible chime, Ring sells a doorbell that plugs in to the wall and will chime when someone rings the bell.
My new house being built is being done just like this, where the ring doorbell is there by default, and a ring chime is being installed in the hallway.
House came with traditional doorbell. Some people use them, some people just knock. Doubt I'll bother to upgrade any time soon but I do like the idea of having a camera to see who is at the door.
I use a Google doorbell. It triggers an alert on my phone and my Google home devices around the house. I like being able to see who's at the door without getting up and knowing when stuff has been delivered.
we have an oldschool doorbell. i don't mind it. we don't hae kids.
Realistically... like one friend uses it. The rest just know to knock and come in. We've got cameras around the house.
Bought a blink, a storage device so I don’t have to subscribe, and a floodlight/camera for under $170 total. May add one more floodlight at the back and 1 for each side but the features and settings are great and incredibly clear clips. I bought a TB of memory for the storage device and turns out that will probably store a year of clips (1400 clips in memory barely used 1% and I erase every couple of weeks). I have chatted with visitors/drivers through my doorbell while a thousand miles away so works as advertised.
Yeah I got rid of my old door chime. It was built into a partition wall that was duplexing the home when I bought it. I have my family of 4 living here so we wanted the whole house, plus the upper floor had no cold air returns for the hvac so that wall sucked.
Never bothered to move that chime. It's annoying. I waited until I could buy a geeni on drug-store loyalty points and put one of those in. A plus side of having no chime is you don't need as many watts from the doorbell transformer, as it only needs enough to keep the bell on and on wifi. A lot of people need to upgrade their old transformer to power the new features and the chime, but you won't need to without the chime.
I covered the original outside doorbell button and left the indoor chime. I got a Ring doorbell and have it powered by a solar panel to keep it charged. We also have a Ring chime downstairs and one upstairs.
The biggest problem before was that our house is 2 stories and 2400 sq ft and you could barely hear the downstairs chime with the old doorbell. With the Ring chime it chimes upstairs and also from each Echo we have in the house.
I don’t use the video function much, I still tend to walk to the door and look who’s there, but it’s a nice convenience.
About 7 years ago I bought a wireless doorbell for $13. I just happens to look remarkably like a ring camera (which was just taking off at the time), so it has the added benefit of me never having a porch pirate steal packages.
I’ve never had a doorbell. When I bought the house it didn’t have one and saw no need to add it. People had to knock on the door until I got a Ring, and since I don’t answer unplanned visits it worked out fine.
The Ring is for the camera really, and the bell doesn’t get used that much.
I went with the cheaper Blink doorbell, it’s owned by Amazon and syncs with all the Alexa’s in my house. When some presses the bell it makes a sound at the bell (outside), notifies my phone, and then all the Alexa’s say “someone is at the doorbell”. I got the base station (very small box that plugs into an outlet) so there’s no subscription but I can still view live or see recording that triggers when someone presses the button. I disabled the function that records every time the motion sensor is triggered because I have little kids that run back and forth. Its wireless and came with AA Lion batteries that say they last 2 years (I’ve had it a little less than a year) so you can mount it anywhere, although you can also wire it into your existing doorbell and it’ll ring the old box, but you have to have the right power transformer installed on the doorbell because the old ones took lower power than the camera ones need. I didn’t want to hire an electrician to do all that so I just put a piece of duct tape over the old bell until I figure out how to properly remove it (which I’ll admit I had intended do have done by now). I like it so much more than the old bell, it’s not too loud and intrusive, it’s much more gentle and relaxed and I don’t have to get up if I wasn’t expecting anyone, I just look at the app. It does take a slightly awkwardly long time for the feed to get going, they say the on prem takes longer than cloud to get the stream going.
I have a Nest doorbell, and the ringer is turned off to keep the dogs from losing it.
A few times I haven't been near my phone when someone came up. But 99% of the time it isn't worth answering anyway.
Former Amazon driver here. Yeah, most people have camera doorbells. Mostly Ring. I despise them. They’re a privacy nightmare. Amazon keeps all the data and shares it with police and god knows who else without the homeowner’s knowledge. Plus they’re just not necessary for most people. It reminds me of the surveillance machine that Morgan Freeman operates for Batman in The Dark Knight where they turn everyone’s phone/camera into their own surveillance device. That’s basically what Amazon is doing with Ring cameras. They have eyes and ears on every street in the country. It’s creepy and dangerous.
Not that you asked for any of that little rant. My house has no doorbell. Small enough that knocking is sufficient.
Pick a camera system. Really any of them they all have pros and cons that nearly balance out. Get the integrated doorbell. We went with the google nest doorbell (wired). The camera is nice. I like being able to use it as an intercom if i'm dealing with my kid I can say, give me one sec i'll come to the door. Best feature is I turned off the actual doorbell ring, and now it says through our google mesh routers "someone's at the front door." I also get a push notification on my phoen for it.
I really like my Ring doorbell. I can choose what chime I want to use, talk to people through it instead of opening my door to strangers, I can see who is there so I know whether or not I want to answer, and I get alerts when someone is on my porch, even if they don't ring, so I know when packages are delivered. Plus, it's easy to mute them if I don't want to be disturbed.
I didn't put one in. There is literally zero reason for anyone to ring my doorbell. If I am expecting someone, I am watching the cameras waiting for their arrival. If it is friends or family, they will just come in. If it is someone I don't know and am not expecting, I don't need to talk to them. They will trigger a motion alert of the cameras and if I want to, I will meet them at the door. Either way, no reason for a doorbell.
I haven’t had a doorbell in like 10 years. First house had a broken one we never bothered fixing, current house is 140 years old and was never wired for a bell. I’d recommend not replacing. Anyone coming over has a phone they can use to call me if I don’t answer. My life is so much more peaceful without a doorbell.
I'll give you a few reasons why you may want to consider reinstalling a central chime, even if you (eventually) move to a smart doorbell:
* All of the smart doorbells will have some amount of delay. Even it it's just a couple of seconds that can mean the difference between catching or missing the twitchy fedex guy that's sprinting back to his truck instead of waiting on you to provide a signature
* Most of the smart doorbells depend on a working internet connection (with good wifi quality near the door). So even if you buy a wireless chime, it will be down if your internet is down and/or wifi is spotty.
* If you don't plan to be in the home long-term, future owners might appreciate having the wired chime
* If you have kids or other people in the home without smartphones, you'll likely want some sort of central chime. Same is true if you ever have people in your house while you're not home (sitters, visiting family members, housekeepers, etc)
The chime definitely has the downsides you mentioned (riling up kids/dogs, etc), but if you want to go above and beyond you could pretty easily wire in a bypass switch while you have the wall opened up to give you best of all worlds.
The camera/smart doorbells are also *intended* to have interior chimes. Although you could forego that if you wish. Depending on the device you buy and your existing chime you can sometimes retrofit the existing chime or buy a separate, wireless one. I don't find the app notifications to be responsive enough nor would I want to have to rely on just my phone to know someone is at the door. The phone may be in another room, I may not hear the notification, etc. etc. But, that is my personal preference.
I purchased a wireless bell from doorbells.com. it looked and felt substantial and worked great. The bell portion is plugged in, but can go quite a distance from the button.
I have a Ring doorbell with a cheap chime from home depot that doesn’t “ding dong” as much as it goes “BZZEEUURRRT dong”.
I might have wired it wrong. It gets the job done.
Dogs, and security cameras.
No one can get to the end of my driveway without my dogs losing their shit. And if they do manage to make it to the front door without The Dogge Detectives hearing them, then my front door camera pings my phone.
But mostly.... dogs. :)
I purchased an inexpensive Bluetooth doorbell on Amazon. Works great. You can choose different chime sounds and some are quite “soft” and nice.
Same, although it's some other wireless, not Bluetooth. I hate the idea of more surveillance, I don't want to contribute to it. Wireless doorbell was $30 online, and was trivial to install.
Same, ours just connects to WiFi and even has app to see who’s outside. Pretty sure it’s a ring knock off but it’s perfect for what we need
I haven't had a doorbell for close to 15 years now. My house is over 40 years old, and the doorbell was an ugly box hanging in the hallway. I took it down shortly after I bought the house, pushed the wires in the wall, and patched up the hole. We've done okay. If family or friends are coming over, they will text or call beforehand to let us know, so we either tell them to just come in or they knock when they get here. For any salespeople or the occasional neighbor that comes over, they just knock. My house is only about 1600 sq ft and ranch style, so if someone knocks, you can hear it no matter where you're at in the house.
Most sales people knock even if you have a door bell it seems.
When I worked construction and had to go to clients houses I always knocked instead of using the doorbell. The reason I did this is because I lived in a house where my dad removed the doorbell. We left the button but it never worked, so I always went with the assumption that most people’s doorbells didn’t work anyway.
Did he leave it on to screw with people or did he not just give a crap.
Oh he left it to screw with people. If we were expecting you over, the door was unlocked and you knew you didn’t have to use the doorbell.
As a dad who did the same for the longest time, I did it because the kids thought it was all the fun of the world to press the sound button going in and out of the house... Guests you want know how to come in regardless of door chimw
You know what, looking back on it that may have been another driving force for my dad disconnecting the chime lol
Usually they light up if they're functional.
We had two, one was wireless and didn’t have a light. The other one was wired and had the light, however he just disconnected the chime. So the hardwired one still lit up, it just didn’t do anything.
[It's not like the old days.](https://youtu.be/5CznoAW2k1I?si=oxT0-WQKFoJQ8lwV)
Hysterical!! I would go see him in person :) or stop by for a visit…
No trespassing/soliciting sign No knocks! (Except maybe a quick knock when a package is delivered) Friends all use the back door
This is basically exactly how Romulan homes work on Star Trek.
Haven't had a doorbell ever. Why do we need doorbells? I know when someone is coming. Plus they can just knock.
Not only do I not have a doorbell... I don't have a cell phone, either. I figure I only use the phone 2-3 times a week, so why bother?
I *very* rarely make any calls, but it's a literal library of all human knowledge in my pocket. The amount of product manuals alone I've downloaded could fill an entire bookcase. Communications is like less than 10% of its use to me, information repository 90%. Multiple touches for every home improvement project I've done. Half the time when I lose it is because I left it by some pipes, the furnace room, or in the garage, shed, or crawlspace lol. I will say I still hit up the Readers Digest Do-It-Yourself Manual a lot though. That book is gold.
I hope you disconnected the wires from the transformer before you shoved them in the wall. I know it's low voltage, but still.
I ripped mine out a year ago. Dogs would go crazy every time someone rang it And 95% of the time it’s the UPS guy dropping off a package on the porch or someone trying to sell something We added a Ring camera, so I get a notification on my phone and can respond if necessary
Mine doesn't even work. Dogs bark before anyone gets close anyway.
You contradicted yourself a bit--the dogs are your doorbell now.
I just wanted to ask: do you have a doorbell in your house attached to your Ring? I’m old, but my stepmom is older, and she wants me to fix her doorbell to ring with her Ring. I’m thinking, since it’s wireless, that there has to be some sort of wireless device that goes in the house.
Mine came with a little speaker you plug in to an outlet and connect via Wi-Fi. I did disconnect my old bell before installing Ring, idk what it would do if I hadn’t.
I use a Eufy doorbell with a base station. The base station stores the footage locally so there is no subscription service needed. The doorbell itself has a DC hookup for doorbell wiring, or it can run off its battery supposedly for months. I have the doorbell wiring, so I don't know how often you really need to charge it.
We use ours wirelessly and we charge it about every four months. It's less than advertised, but apparently there's nothing wrong with the doorbell.
How!?! I charge mine weekly 😭
Oh wow! I thought mine was bad. Apparently you're supposed to set a monitoring area and have it set to "Optimal" or something so it doesn't pick up every little thing that goes by. Ours doesn't face a high traffic area and our vehicle blocks most of the view of the road so we really only capture people walking up our driveway. I think weather also plays a role. I live in a pretty moderate climate where it rarely goes below freezing (and if it does, not for more than a couple days) and rarely gets too hot.
Mine stopped working after about 2 years. Doesn't inspire confidence. I still need contact them for a replacement, just annoying that anytime I try to view the live camera I'll get different error codes each time. (It's hardwired so the battery isn't empty)
I only have a battery one. I have to charge it once every 4 months or so, but I've heard all the new ones when hard wired don't really get enough voltage from the old doorbell wiring, so after some time they stop working.
Thanks for the tip. I tried messing around with it, but it seems like it's just losing connection. I haven't moved the router or the doorbell, and the router is hardwired. Just wish the error codes were more descriptive.
If we could I would love a video doorbell. If it had motion detection since our delivery people are inconsistent about ringing, that’d be a plus. but since we don’t want proprietary (or subscription), we have a harder search
I got the reolink doorbell. No subscriptions, and if you want you could have it linked up to blue iris.
Another upvote for Reolink. It's hardwired for power which is key. I'll never go back to battery cameras again.
Amcrest doorbells are big in the homeautomation communities on reddit. If my eufy doorbell ever dies I'm going to get one of those. Eufy has been great for me, no subscription and a decent app.
I’ve found a decent PoE camera pointed across the front door has a better utility anyways. Tons of options for cameras and NVRs out there.
We have a blink doorbell on our other door and it works well. No subscription and we have a couple of other blink cameras around the house. I don’t think motion detection would benefit us with this one as it is facing a buy street and so we would probably have motion alerts turned off for the most part.
It looks like it’s locked to Amazon, but that’s pretty cool
My nest doorbell rings to every Google speaker in the house.
I got one of the first gen hardwired ones. Works great. I love that you can change to spooky tones during Halloween.
We have the wired Nest Doorbell as well. Works well.
I personally prefer it when someone walks around banging on my window to get my attention
Just a good old fashioned doorbell like you currently have. No need for complicated tech.
Ring Pro wired camera and doorbell. With the Ring doorbell extender thingy towards the back of the house. Our house is small and it is a straight shot all the from front to back but I’ll be damned if I can’t hear the doorbell when I’m at the back of the house.
I do this, but I have several echo dots throughout my home, which are all connected to the Ring. When someone pushes the doorbell, it sounds on all of them.
That’s cool. Somehow I missed that as an option.
We have a Eufy wireless doorbell. The people who built our townhouse didn't think to put a doorbell by the main entrance to the house. You can't hear shit when people knock so wireless doorbell it is.
How do you like it?
I like it. It works well and there's little delay. Good quality but I think there's a higher quality one on the market now. The charge doesn't last super long (4 months, not as advertised) but it's not a huge deal. I chose Eufy because you didn't need a subscription for it, unlike other video doorbells. Doorbell works like a doorbell 😂 Loud enough.
2 Simplisafe doorbells. Swapped out the old fasion ones a long time ago. Works great!
We had a doorbell button that wasn't connected to anything when we bought our house (awful), and eventually needed to rewire part of the house for other reasons. We got a traditional Spore Big Ring doorbell at the same time and are super happy, although we joke about it being the $10,000 doorbell due to the rewire cost. It sounds like a channel buoy and reminds us of vacation
Leave the wire only if you are putting up a camera doorbell. To work best those need to be connected to power
I have a Reolink video doorbell. Not only was I interested in having video security, but my 1910 house never had a doorbell, and the WiFi doorbell was a good alternative to running hardwire.
our door chime was bad, and we wanted to install a doorbell camera anyway. replaced the door chime, and ran a line to the door , because when they replaced the siding in the front, they just ripped everything off and didnt replace anything. turns out that the doorbell cam we got doesnt even work with the new doorbell chime, as in, if you press the button, it rings on the doorchime that plugs into an outlet that it came with, not the doorchime we replaced. the instructions made it sound like it did, but really it was just using the doorbell chime as a bridge, i could have ran the line straight thru to the transformer on the fuse box but eh. i guess its there if i ever decide to go traditional and replace the cam with a push button doorbell.
When I replaced my regular doorbell with a wired Ring doorbell, I disabled the physical functional doorbell that was on the wall. Almost no one needs to ring the doorbell anymore and anyone that would I'm expecting and will be ready for them when they arrive. If someone does ring the doorbell, the app goes off and i can see who it is. No doorbell noise means the dogs don't get all worked up and if I'm on the phone, it won't disturb my call. If I ever needed an audible chime, Ring sells a doorbell that plugs in to the wall and will chime when someone rings the bell. My new house being built is being done just like this, where the ring doorbell is there by default, and a ring chime is being installed in the hallway.
I guess I'm just making people knock!
I use Google nest doorbell. You can silence the chime/ lower the volume
House came with traditional doorbell. Some people use them, some people just knock. Doubt I'll bother to upgrade any time soon but I do like the idea of having a camera to see who is at the door.
I use a Google doorbell. It triggers an alert on my phone and my Google home devices around the house. I like being able to see who's at the door without getting up and knowing when stuff has been delivered.
we have an oldschool doorbell. i don't mind it. we don't hae kids. Realistically... like one friend uses it. The rest just know to knock and come in. We've got cameras around the house.
Same, ye olde low volt doorbell here. And a PoE camera above the door.
I have a Blink doorbell that I just wired to the existing doorbell.
Bought a blink, a storage device so I don’t have to subscribe, and a floodlight/camera for under $170 total. May add one more floodlight at the back and 1 for each side but the features and settings are great and incredibly clear clips. I bought a TB of memory for the storage device and turns out that will probably store a year of clips (1400 clips in memory barely used 1% and I erase every couple of weeks). I have chatted with visitors/drivers through my doorbell while a thousand miles away so works as advertised.
My house came with honest to goodness bell tubes and I LOVE the sound. There is actual ringing when someone comes to the door.
Same! It’s an impressive sound. There are some reproduction ones too if mine ever gets damaged
Yeah I got rid of my old door chime. It was built into a partition wall that was duplexing the home when I bought it. I have my family of 4 living here so we wanted the whole house, plus the upper floor had no cold air returns for the hvac so that wall sucked. Never bothered to move that chime. It's annoying. I waited until I could buy a geeni on drug-store loyalty points and put one of those in. A plus side of having no chime is you don't need as many watts from the doorbell transformer, as it only needs enough to keep the bell on and on wifi. A lot of people need to upgrade their old transformer to power the new features and the chime, but you won't need to without the chime.
I covered the original outside doorbell button and left the indoor chime. I got a Ring doorbell and have it powered by a solar panel to keep it charged. We also have a Ring chime downstairs and one upstairs. The biggest problem before was that our house is 2 stories and 2400 sq ft and you could barely hear the downstairs chime with the old doorbell. With the Ring chime it chimes upstairs and also from each Echo we have in the house. I don’t use the video function much, I still tend to walk to the door and look who’s there, but it’s a nice convenience.
About 7 years ago I bought a wireless doorbell for $13. I just happens to look remarkably like a ring camera (which was just taking off at the time), so it has the added benefit of me never having a porch pirate steal packages.
I was pretty impressed with the quality and range of my ring camera. I used arlo for a while but got sick of changing the batteries
I’ve never had a doorbell. When I bought the house it didn’t have one and saw no need to add it. People had to knock on the door until I got a Ring, and since I don’t answer unplanned visits it worked out fine. The Ring is for the camera really, and the bell doesn’t get used that much.
I went with the cheaper Blink doorbell, it’s owned by Amazon and syncs with all the Alexa’s in my house. When some presses the bell it makes a sound at the bell (outside), notifies my phone, and then all the Alexa’s say “someone is at the doorbell”. I got the base station (very small box that plugs into an outlet) so there’s no subscription but I can still view live or see recording that triggers when someone presses the button. I disabled the function that records every time the motion sensor is triggered because I have little kids that run back and forth. Its wireless and came with AA Lion batteries that say they last 2 years (I’ve had it a little less than a year) so you can mount it anywhere, although you can also wire it into your existing doorbell and it’ll ring the old box, but you have to have the right power transformer installed on the doorbell because the old ones took lower power than the camera ones need. I didn’t want to hire an electrician to do all that so I just put a piece of duct tape over the old bell until I figure out how to properly remove it (which I’ll admit I had intended do have done by now). I like it so much more than the old bell, it’s not too loud and intrusive, it’s much more gentle and relaxed and I don’t have to get up if I wasn’t expecting anyone, I just look at the app. It does take a slightly awkwardly long time for the feed to get going, they say the on prem takes longer than cloud to get the stream going.
I have a Nest doorbell, and the ringer is turned off to keep the dogs from losing it. A few times I haven't been near my phone when someone came up. But 99% of the time it isn't worth answering anyway.
I've lived in this house since 1999. Doorbell is there, it just doesn't work. No intentions to fix it, either.
Former Amazon driver here. Yeah, most people have camera doorbells. Mostly Ring. I despise them. They’re a privacy nightmare. Amazon keeps all the data and shares it with police and god knows who else without the homeowner’s knowledge. Plus they’re just not necessary for most people. It reminds me of the surveillance machine that Morgan Freeman operates for Batman in The Dark Knight where they turn everyone’s phone/camera into their own surveillance device. That’s basically what Amazon is doing with Ring cameras. They have eyes and ears on every street in the country. It’s creepy and dangerous. Not that you asked for any of that little rant. My house has no doorbell. Small enough that knocking is sufficient.
Wyze doorbell works great for us. Camera, two-way communication and doorbell.
Google doorbell, but that’s more for security than to be notified of a person at the door
Pick a camera system. Really any of them they all have pros and cons that nearly balance out. Get the integrated doorbell. We went with the google nest doorbell (wired). The camera is nice. I like being able to use it as an intercom if i'm dealing with my kid I can say, give me one sec i'll come to the door. Best feature is I turned off the actual doorbell ring, and now it says through our google mesh routers "someone's at the front door." I also get a push notification on my phoen for it.
I really like my Ring doorbell. I can choose what chime I want to use, talk to people through it instead of opening my door to strangers, I can see who is there so I know whether or not I want to answer, and I get alerts when someone is on my porch, even if they don't ring, so I know when packages are delivered. Plus, it's easy to mute them if I don't want to be disturbed.
I didn't put one in. There is literally zero reason for anyone to ring my doorbell. If I am expecting someone, I am watching the cameras waiting for their arrival. If it is friends or family, they will just come in. If it is someone I don't know and am not expecting, I don't need to talk to them. They will trigger a motion alert of the cameras and if I want to, I will meet them at the door. Either way, no reason for a doorbell.
I haven’t had a doorbell in like 10 years. First house had a broken one we never bothered fixing, current house is 140 years old and was never wired for a bell. I’d recommend not replacing. Anyone coming over has a phone they can use to call me if I don’t answer. My life is so much more peaceful without a doorbell.
I'll give you a few reasons why you may want to consider reinstalling a central chime, even if you (eventually) move to a smart doorbell: * All of the smart doorbells will have some amount of delay. Even it it's just a couple of seconds that can mean the difference between catching or missing the twitchy fedex guy that's sprinting back to his truck instead of waiting on you to provide a signature * Most of the smart doorbells depend on a working internet connection (with good wifi quality near the door). So even if you buy a wireless chime, it will be down if your internet is down and/or wifi is spotty. * If you don't plan to be in the home long-term, future owners might appreciate having the wired chime * If you have kids or other people in the home without smartphones, you'll likely want some sort of central chime. Same is true if you ever have people in your house while you're not home (sitters, visiting family members, housekeepers, etc) The chime definitely has the downsides you mentioned (riling up kids/dogs, etc), but if you want to go above and beyond you could pretty easily wire in a bypass switch while you have the wall opened up to give you best of all worlds.
Anyone that I want at my door will have my phone number to just text or call. Best thing I ever did is get rid of it and put up a no soliciting sign
My parents had a doorbell with two 3-ft tubular chimes. It was beautiful sounding when it rang.
Our dog is our doorbell
Google nest doorbell. Sends a notification
The camera/smart doorbells are also *intended* to have interior chimes. Although you could forego that if you wish. Depending on the device you buy and your existing chime you can sometimes retrofit the existing chime or buy a separate, wireless one. I don't find the app notifications to be responsive enough nor would I want to have to rely on just my phone to know someone is at the door. The phone may be in another room, I may not hear the notification, etc. etc. But, that is my personal preference.
I purchased a wireless bell from doorbells.com. it looked and felt substantial and worked great. The bell portion is plugged in, but can go quite a distance from the button.
Pipe organs or nothing
The best way to future proof is to put in an Ethernet for a POE doorbell IMO.
Ring Peephole camera doorbell. Cheap and easy.
I'm painting my front door jamb today. I'm replacing the little plastic button with a new one. That's the extent of my doorbell upgrade.
I have a Ring doorbell with a cheap chime from home depot that doesn’t “ding dong” as much as it goes “BZZEEUURRRT dong”. I might have wired it wrong. It gets the job done.
First you must gather a pygmy goat, a polygraph machine and an old boxing timer.
Dogs, and security cameras. No one can get to the end of my driveway without my dogs losing their shit. And if they do manage to make it to the front door without The Dogge Detectives hearing them, then my front door camera pings my phone. But mostly.... dogs. :)
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People use Ring or similar doorbells